One of the horror genre's "most widely read critics" (Rue Morgue # 68), "an accomplished film journalist" (Comic Buyer's Guide #1535), and the award-winning author of Horror Films of the 1980s (2007), The Rock and Roll Film Encyclopedia (2007) and Horror Films of the 1970s (2002), John Kenneth Muir, presents his blog on film, television and nostalgia, named one of the Top 100 Film Studies Blog on the Net.

Thursday, November 05, 2015

007 Week: Tomorrow Never Dies (1997)

Tomorrow
Never Dies
(1997) is the finest Bond film of the Pierce Brosnan Era (1995 – 2002).

Although
many scholars and viewers would tag Goldeneye (1995) for that particular
honor, Tomorrow Never Dies ultimately gets the nod because it builds
on the success of that film in some significant and artistic ways.

First
and foremost, Bond himself is a deeper, more conflicted character in Tomorrow
Never Dies, one who is haunted by the failures in his past, and the
tragedies in his present.

Specifically,
Tomorrow
Never Dies explores Bond’s (failed) relationship with an old flame,
Paris Carver (Teri Hatcher) and reveals that he is a man who is doomed to
repeats his mistakes.

Bond keeps
knowingly puts women in danger…and they
keep dying.

What
kind of man is he to let this happen again and again?

One
who -- truly -- puts Queen and Country above his personal life, and at a great
human, emotional price.

This
“darker” look at James Bond grants Pierce Brosnan something powerful to hold
onto -- something worthwhile to chew over -- and his characterization of 007 here
is an improvement over his work in Goldeneye. I like his impossibly handsome, impossibly urbane
Bond with a fallible side; a kind of world-weariness.

As
I’ve written before, I am not generally the biggest Pierce Brosnan supporter in
terms of James Bond films, though -- perhaps ironically -- I do deeply admire
his performances as an aging spy in virtually all of his post-Bond films.

I
suspect that fact suggests one thing: that Brosnan is perfectly capable of being
a great Bond, but that somehow the scripts/story-lines during his era never
quite gelled with his particular personal strengths.

Part
of the problem, I would suggest, is the familiar push-pull of the Bond
franchise. Historically speaking, the
movies follow a pattern. They have
repeated this pattern, again and again.

What
is that pattern?

Well,
the films veer towards excess, entry to entry, and then finally go too
far. Then, the filmmakers must re-ground
the series, eschewing fantasy and going “back to basics.”

We
have seen this re-grounding phase occur with the nearly gadget-less On
Her Majesty’s Secret Service (1969), For Your Eyes Only
(1981), The Living Daylights (1987) and Casino Royale (2006).

Those
films are explicit and deliberate responses to the out-of-whack fantastic
elements of You Only Live Twice (1967), Moonraker (1979), A
View to a Kill (1985) and Die Another Day (2002).

Yet
Brosnan assumes the role with Goldeneye, a film that -- whatever
its merits -- takes no real creative chances, also because of reasons of
franchise history. Goldeneye’s sense of re-balancing involves making Bond’s world
less personal, less-real, less-serious, less human, and much more spectacular
than the one in Dalton’s critically-reviled Licence to Kill.

The
re-grounding here is not about re-discovering lost humanity, then, but re-establishing
the franchise’s “epic” bona fides. Goldeneye gives us space lasers,
bungee jumping, skydiving to planes in flight, and other big moments that telegraph
one core idea: BOND IS BACK.

And
BIGGER THAN EVER!

What
this means for Brosnan, however, is that the films don’t really handle Bond’s
persona in a deep way. He is a step backwards
in a sense; less dramatic a Bond than Dalton, with features in common with
Moore’s Bond: colorful and flamboyant but not deep or often vulnerable.

As
I noted above, Brosnan’s recent performances outside the Bond saga ironically suggest
he could have brought a more cynical, caustic, burnt-out approach to Bond. It’s a shame that the franchise didn’t make
use of those talents fully.

But
enough history lessons.

Tomorrow
Never Dies
gets closest to a more human paradigm, exposing Bond as a bit of a cad who uses
those he loves, and then lives a solitary life, without even the possibility of
real love, because he always chooses duty over personal connection. Even he
knows this to be true. He seems resigned to that destiny. For bond, at this point, after-glow is
kissing the head of a dead lover before leaving to exact revenge against her
murderer.

That
impression of Bond as a man who throws his lover overboard -- putting her in danger though he already
knows all-too-well the likely result of that danger -- is clearly reflected
or mirrored in the film’s villain: Elliot Carver (Jonathan Pryce).

He
is a man, a media magnate, who doesn’t just report the stories; he makes stories happen. He puts people
and even countries into mortal danger over his desire to make money; to forge a
global “narrative” that fits his interests and grows his influence.

Both
men use people for ulterior motives.

With
Bond, of course, it is not about self-glorification or power, but about the
safety and security of Britain. For
Carver, it is about ego, about power.

Yet
both men use poor Paris, and both men notably fail Paris. Bond’s reasons are using
her are far more pro-social (avoiding a war), however, than are Carver’s.

But
it’s certainly telling that just moments after losing Paris, Bond is smiling
and grinning at his mastery of a remote control car. He lives in the moment too; just as Carver
lives for a good story.

As
many reviews and interviews have made plain, Elliot Carver is, basically, a
fictionalized version of Rupert Murdoch, the owner of Fox News and other news
sources. The depiction of Murdoch here isn’t about political commentary, however,
but rather about the consolidation of power in one organization.

The
film evidences deep concern (or what qualifies a deep concern, in a Bond film,
rather…) over the idea that one man can sell his message over multiple channels
simultaneously, thus shaping the thoughts and opinions of millions of people. One man, in control of a media empire, can be
responsible for huge amounts of misinformation, not to mention innuendo

The
question the film raises is this: is someone who can achieve that end -- the altering a millions of opinions in a few
heart-beats -- more powerful, even, than a president or prime minister?

The
answer, according to Tomorrow Never Dies, is affirmative.
Carver discusses in the film how he keeps politicians under his thumb. One wrong move, and that leader gets “slimed.”

What’s
the context that permitted this kind of social commentary? It’s not just the
ascent of Rupert Murdoch, but the whole milieu around him. Tomorrow Never Dies premiered in
1997, just as Fox, CNN, and MSNBC were rising in the culture, forming a crucial
trifecta of the twenty-four hour news cycle.

What
that means is that news stories were (and are…) aired all the time, every day,
and thus had to consume voracious amounts of material, of content.

The media beast had
to be fed.

One
of the first personalities consumed by this beast was President Bill Clinton,
and the Monica Lewinsky Crisis/Impeachment Scandal was one of the first major
stories of this new “media” paradigm. Around the clock, the “news” networks fed
the audience talking heads, dueling political operatives, and spin-doctors as
“reporters” or “journalists,” weaving new conspiracy theories and new aspects
of the story. The story was sucked up, chewed, spit out, sucked in again,
chewed over one more time, and then regurgitated yet again.

Elliot
Carver, who starts wars to sell newspapers and get good TV ratings, is only a
hop, skip and a jump away from the real life corporate media. Do we see such blurring of lines in real
life? Of course, in the Iraq War of
2003, journalists were “embedded” with troops and became part of the ongoing
story. And those who weren’t actually
part of the story, just made pretend that they were part of the story (Brian
Williams, j’accuse).

Tomorrow
Never Dies nicely
sets up a conflict between good (Bond and M), who want to “prevent World War III,” and bad (Carver), who in this case notes
that ‘words are the new weapons,
satellites the new artillery.”

Outside
the more world-weary 007, and a social commentary about the rise of the 24-hour
news cycle, Tomorrow Never Dies holds up well today for other reasons.

Michelle
Yeoh’s agent, Wai Lin, demonstrates a level of independence and physical competence
heretofore unseen by women in the franchise. The film gets a lot of mileage out
of Yeoh’s martial arts abilities, and she comes across as a ‘Bond Girl’ every
bit Bond’s equal. In fact, in some fight
scenes, Wai Lin is clearly his superior.
He resorts to trickery and cunning to take out his foes, whereas she
uses her athletic prowess.

The
pre-title sequence -- a visit to a “terrorist supermarket” on the Russian
border – is brilliantly-edited, ramping up suspense as Bond must dispose of a
nuclear weapon before a Navy air-strike detonates the device. This scene
features a ticking time-bomb quality and spectacular stunts.

The
film also hews close to Bond transition, depicting Bond as the last line of
defense – and independent thinking, actually – as World Powers lumber towards
war. This idea, played in terms of China
and Britain’s dueling navy ships, feels like a call back to You
Only Live Twice (1967) or The Spy Who Loved Me (1977). And Mr. Stamper, Carver’s foot soldier in the
“war for ratings,” also feels like a call-back to a similar character, working
for Blofeld, in You Only Live Twice.

Finally,
I give high marks to this film’s “sacrificial lamb,” Paris Carver, as played by
Teri Hatcher. I like her world-weariness
and sharp dialogue. He clearly
understands that whatever path she takes, she is heading for a bad end. And, she’s right

Pierce
Brosnan headlined just four Bond films.
I understand why Goldeneye tends towards more critical
appreciation. It was a big,
crowd-pleasing effort that arrived six years after the last outing, and – yes -
it was great to have Bond back.

But
in so many ways, Tomorrow Never Dies improves on that film.

Aside
from Sophie Marceau in The World is Not Enough and the
first twenty minutes of Die Another Day (with Bond a
prisoner of war in North Korea), Brosnan’s era never again came together so
well.

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About John

award-winning author of 27 books including Horror Films FAQ (2013), Horror Films of the 1990s (2011), Horror Films of the 1980s (2007), TV Year (2007), The Rock and Roll Film Encyclopedia (2007), Mercy in Her Eyes: The Films of Mira Nair (2006),, Best in Show: The Films of Christopher Guest and Company (2004), The Unseen Force: The Films of Sam Raimi (2004), An Askew View: The Films of Kevin Smith (2002), The Encyclopedia of Superheroes on Film & Television (2004), Exploring Space:1999 (1997), An Analytical Guide to TV's Battlestar Galactica (1998), Terror Television (2001), Space:1999 - The Forsaken (2003) and Horror Films of the 1970s (2002).

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